RUSSIA'S TINDERBOX - Belfer Center for Science and International ...

Caucasus as a separate and distinct group worthy of rehabilitation and a took a prominent Cossack
leader, P. Kosov, as his Adviser. 115
Since March 1993, however, the Russian government has continued to elevate the status of
the Cossacks in the North Caucasus and develop them as a potential military force. In April 1994,
the Russian Government adopted a further resolution “On the Conception of State Policy Regarding
Cossacks” which proposed the revival of the Cossacks’ former military-agricultural structures, and
the use of Cossack formations in the army, internal troops and customs authority in the Russian
Federation. The resolution stipulated that land should be set aside for Cossacks in the form of a state
land fund which would be allotted to the Cossack community in return for state service. In spite of
the presence of Cossacks in all of the frontier regions of the Russian Federation, the North Caucasus
was again singled out as the first region for the implementation of the new Cossack policy.
In December 1994, President Yeltsin also established a Council for Cossack Affairs to
develop policy toward the Cossacks further. The Council was headed by the President and included
the Deputy Defense Minister, the Deputy Minister of the Interior, the Deputy Director of the Federal
Counter Intelligence Service, the Deputy Secretaries of the Security Council and the Commander-in-
Chief of the Russian border guards. 116 The composition of this Council indicated the perceived
importance of the Cossacks from a military and strategic point of view. The creation of the Council
and the fact that the North Caucasus were singled out in the April 1994 resolution also suggest that
the Cossacks are seen as Moscow’s buffer against the demands of the non-Russian peoples in the
region for increased autonomy and territorial change.
The Status of the Cossacks in the North Caucasus:
Although the Russian government clearly sees the Cossacks as an instrument of its policy in
the North Caucasus, general interest in Cossack heritage among the Russian population of the region
has waned since 1993. A top local official from Stavropol’ Krai, interviewed by the SDI Project in
July 1995 on the issue of the Cossacks in the region, noted that the Russian population in Stavropol’
and Krasnodar had become disillusioned with the Cossacks as a group, and few new people were
registering themselves with the organized hosts which were riddled with internal divisions. 117
115 For Cossacks in the border region between Ingushetia and Chechnya, Ingushetia is now seen as a possible ally
and a counter-weight to Chechnya’s radicalism. In June 1995, for example, Cossack residents of the Chechen
village of Assinovskaya on the border with Ingushetia held a general meeting in which they resolved to secede
from Chechnya and join Ingushetia. The Cossack leaders noted that only Ingushetia could protect them from
arbitrary action by “the Dudayev regime and indifference on the part of the federal authorities,” and appealed to
President Aushev to petition the Russian government for the modification of the Ingushetian-Chechen border.
See Natalya Gorodetskaya, “Cossacks of Assinovskaya Village Decide to Secede From Chechnya,” Segodnya
(in English), June 14, 1995.
116 See Issa Kostoyev, “Should Cossacks be Regarded as a People?” Moscow News, No. 10, March 17-23, 1995.
Kostoyev writes: “With the decrees and laws on the status of Cossacks in the army, on Cossack land tenure, on
Cossack associations and councils under the President, and on the state fund to support Cossacks, it seems that
no other problem in our country has aroused such bureaucratic enthusiasm.”
117 In contrast, a survey carried out by the Center for Sociological Studies in Vladikavkaz in North Ossetia, at the
end of 1994, among Terek Cossacks in North Ossetia, Kabardino-Balkaria, Chechnya, Ingushetia and Dagestan,
showed that Cossack identity in these republics was relatively high. The Russian population was also extremely
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